Giving comes in all shapes and sizes. The reasons for giving vary, and the causes people support are as wide-ranging and unique as the community itself.

But at the end of the day, the outcome is the same: A community is enriched. Given new resources and fresh hope for solving our most pervasive challenges.

The Greater Green Bay Community Foundation has been honored to steward two recent game-changing gifts that will impact our quality of life and the nonprofit organizations working to improve it.

These gifts total more than $21 million and will be invested for long-term, lasting support. Because of this generosity, and as the community’s needs evolve, the opportunity to address those needs will be nimble and enduring. An agency can focus a little more on providing much-needed help and a little less on figuring out how to get the funding to support it. New scholarships will be created for students capable of making their own mark on the world but without the means to further their education. A nonprofit organization can test new program ideas that it otherwise wouldn’t take a chance on, possibly discovering a better way of serving clients and solving problems.

And we can all take something away from that. The power to have impact is broad and it’s layered. Giving $35 to a homeless shelter can provide a night of shelter for someone living on the streets. With a $50 donation, a local animal welfare organization can provide vaccinations to 10 cats or six dogs in shelter, preparing them for their forever homes. With $25, a human services agency can provide two hours of one-on-one mentoring for a youth with mental health concerns, potentially changing the trajectory of their lives.

Ron and Pauline Heim supported the place they called home in innumerable ways just like this before their passing. With a planned gift of more than $16.5 million through their estate, the Heims will continue to support this community long after any of us are here.

The Heims established an endowed fund that will provide select organizations working in human services, animal welfare, education and other sectors with the ongoing tools they need to grow and adapt with the changing needs over time. Annual distributions will offer a measure of stability to organizations that are ever-evolving to serve our community. It will mean scholarships for students in need, steady support in demanding areas like hunger and homelessness, and new opportunities for facilities that serve our community’s cultural and historical sectors.

An anonymous donor has provided $5 million, without restrictions, to be invested in the community through ongoing and innovative responses to our most compelling opportunities and our greatest challenges.

We recognize a great responsibility to ensure this gift has the greatest impact possible and will invest the bulk of these dollars in our grant-making work, providing funding to critical programs throughout our community. It will also endow a program designed to help nonprofits build capacity within their organizations to strengthen their operations and services.

The forethought of the Heim family and the visionary consideration of a generous-hearted donor mean their legacies will live on forever in the work that takes place here.

The Community Foundation works every day with people who are giving of time, talent and treasure at the most modest and the most affluent levels.

The work our local nonprofit organizations are immersed in every day can be overwhelming. This strategic support gives renewed hope that we can work together to overcome challenges and take bold steps toward a healthier and stronger community.

Amber Paluch is vice president of community engagement for the Greater Green Bay Community Foundation.